Contact Information

Phone: (805) 893-2804
E-Mail: ljaremka@gmail.com
Website: www.lisajaremka.com
Office: Psychology Building, Room 2239

Mailing Address

Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660

After graduating with her B.A. from SUNY at Buffalo, Lisa joined the PhD program at the University of California Santa Barbara . She is currently in her sixth and final year of graduate school and has been supported by a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship, a McNair Scholars graduate fellowship, and a Broida-Herschfelder graduate fellowship. She has also been a teaching assistant for a number of classes including psychological statistics, advanced research methods, and close relationships.

Research Interests

Lisa's research interests lie in the domain of interpersonal relationships and stem from three primary theoretical traditions: risk regulation theory, attachment theory, and motivational perspectives on the need to belong. Her research focuses on three related areas:

(1) The intersection of the self and close relationships

(2) Adaptive and maladaptive responses to rejection and other threats to belonging

(3) Social support processes and their underlying mechanisms

Across all three of the areas listed above, Lisa is particularly interested in the interface between physiology and psychology with an emphasis on the endocrine and cardiovascular systems. Her research also aims to capitalize on the benefits of multi-method data collection by using experimental, observational, longitudinal, and daily diary data collection techniques.

Select Publications

Jaremka, L. M., Bunyan, D. P., Collins, N. L., & Sherman, D. K. (in press). Reducing defensive distancing: Self-affirmation and risk regulation in response to relationship threats. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology.

Jaremka, L. M., Gabriel, S., & Carvallo, M. (in press). What makes us feel the best also makes us feel the worst: The emotional impact of independent and social experiences. Self and Identity.

Sherman, D. K., Bunyan, D. P., Creswell. D., J., & Jaremka, L. M. (2009). Psychological vulnerability and stress: The long-term effects of self-affirmation on sympathetic nervous system responses to naturalistic stressors. Health Psychology, 28, 554-562. PDF.

Contact Information

Phone: (805) 893-2804
Fax: (805) 893-4303
E-Mail: ncollins@psych.ucsb.edu
Office: Psychology East (Building 251), Room 3822

Mailing Address

Department of Psychology
University of California, Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara, CA 93106-9660

After receiving her BA in Psychology from UCLA, Professor Collins completed her PhD in Social Psychology at the University of Southern California. She returned to UCLA for a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Health Psychology, and then served as a professor of Social Psychology at the State University of New at Buffalo from 1993 to 1997. Dr. Collins joined the Psychology Department at UCSB in 1997. Dr. Collins includes among her professional honors the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP) Theoretical Innovation Prize (2007), the Harold J. Plous Award for outstanding contributions to teaching and research at UCSB (2002), and the Young Investigator Award from the Close Relationships group of the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (1991). Dr. Collins has also received numerous honors for excellence in teaching at UCSB, including an Academic Senate Distinguished Teaching Award (2005) and two Outstanding Faculty Member Awards (1998, 2010). Dr. Collins is currently chair of the Quantitative Methods in Social Sciences (QMSS) program. She teaches courses in close relationships, research methods, introductory statistics, multivariate statistics, and structural equation modeling. Her research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, and the Fetzer Foundation.

Research Interests

Dr. Collins’ research lies at the interface of close relationships, social cognition, and health psychology. Her research explores the social and cognitive processes that shape close relationships in adulthood, and the impact that these processes have on health and well-being across the lifespan. Most of this work is guided by adult attachment theory. Within these broad domains, her current research activities are focused on three main topics:

(1) social perception processes in close relationships, with emphasis on the ways in which working models (mental representations) of attachment shape how individuals construe their relationship experiences,

(2) social support and caregiving processes in couples, with emphasis on the factors that predict effective support-seeking and caregiving behavior in intimate relationships, including neuroendocrine and cardiovascular mechanisms, and

(3) psychosocial predictors of health and well-being, with emphasis on the psychological and biological mechanisms through which close relationships affect health outcomes.

Selected Publications

Ford, M. B., & Collins, N. L. (2010). Self-esteem moderates neuroendocrine and psychological responses to interpersonal rejection. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Collins, N. L. & Feeney, B. C. (2010). An attachment theoretical perspective on social support dynamics in couples: Normative processes and individual differences. In K. Sullivan & J. Davila (Eds.), Support Processes in Intimate Relationships. Oxford University Press.

Murray, S. L., Holmes, J. G., & Collins, N. L. (2006). Optimizing assurance: The risk regulation system in relationships. Psychological Bulletin, 132, 641-666.